So I taught college Sunday school this week. The topic was moral relativism. I passed out different kinds of nails to each group of two or three and asked them not to show each other. I told them, this is your truth.
After that, I went to the whiteboard and asked each of them to help me draw the nail. The discussion was interesting as each had different size heads, lengths, scoring, etc. Finally, one of the exasperated students said, depending on our truth, the nail will look very different. AH HA! She got it! So the first part of the message was that if everyone has a different truth, there is no one real truth, as everyone has their own, and they can be entirely different.
Then I took one nail, and had three different people draw it on the board. Each time I told them it was wrong, since they drew a side view. I then showed them the right way to draw it was looking straight at the nail point, basically two concentric circles and a dot for the point. What I was trying to get across is that even when we have the same truth, it is viewed from our own perspective, which is based on lots of factors from our childhood and adult experiences and learning.
So, when we are explaining to others about stuff, whether they are knowledgeable or not, they are going to have a perspective. If it is business, they will have paradigms from their past, if it is scripture, it will be affected by past learnings as well as their opinions in general.
Perspective can hurt our attempts to explain as we find out they are seeing a completely different truth, or if they view truth from a much different point of view than we do. That is why relating is so important as a partner to explaining. Relating helps us discover the perspective of others. This knowledge can impart wisdom as to whether you are even on the same page as the other person, much less the same sentence.
Relating can prevent serious interpersonal barriers from forming as others get defensive as to their position. Relating can show us when explaining is not a good idea at the time.
It all works together!
We say this all the time...Perception is reality. We might not mean something to sound short or curt but the person we are speaking to "perceives" it that way, either from tone or body language or their own issues. We can be totally trying to relate to another but their "perception" is their reality. I think your whole concept is addressing the fact that our perceptions are our reality. We have to work within relationships to try to understand that concept and understand that everyone has a story that colors their perceptions.
ReplyDeleteyou are right that our perceptions are our reality. THe cool thing though is that we have control over our perceptions through awareness. When we can see all sides of a person or issue, we have a more whole perception and don't penalize ourselves.
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